Festival Betances Celebrates New England's Latine Community and Heritage

It's almost time to party in Boston's South End! New England's longest-running Latine culture festival returns with an incredible musical lineup, tasty food, a parade, and plenty of fun. Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción's "Festival Betances" is all about inclusion, community, and expression.. IBA's CEO, Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, returns to the show with all the details about this special event.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend where each and
every week we come together right herewe talk about all the topics important to
you and the place where you live. It's so good to be back with
you again this week. I'm NicoleDavis. Summertime in the city means festival
season, and even though it's beenso hot and so humid, that is
definitely not stopping people from coming outto party to celebrate culture and community.

(00:32):
Coming up on Saturday the twentieth,the South End is going to be full
of salsa music dancing in Seoul.It's all thanks to this year's festival Bittansas.
It's put on by Inkuillinos Baricuos,Anaxion otherwise known as EBA. The
president of EBA, Vanessa calder Romozzato, is back here on the show to
talk about this latest event. Vanessais so good to have you here again,
and for people who didn't catch yourlast appearance, let's quickly talk a

(00:56):
bit about EBA and the history herein Boston. Yes, EVA is in
Killinos, but it was an axiomor translated to English for a Rican tenants
in action. And we are anationally recognized community development corporation in Boston that
empowers individuals and families through high quality, affordable housing, education, financial and

(01:21):
residence empowerment programs, as well asarts programming. We talked last time about
the brand new arts center you're workingon in the South End, which is
such a cool project. But thisis a festival that's been going on for
some time. This is not new, but it's definitely a fun time festival.
Bitonsas so tell us a bit aboutthe history of the festival. Sure,

(01:42):
well, the festival has been goingon. It's one of the longest
Latino, longest running Latino festivals inNew England. The festival is celebrating fifty
one years this year, so it'sbeen around for quite some time. And
the festival started at EVA just tobring people together to celebrate quer Rican and

(02:06):
Latino arts and culture and also tobuild community. So we have continued that
tradition and this year we are superexcited to have the theme of Umano Embeddances
or a Summer Imbdances, meaning thatyou know, there's so much fun,
virancy, joy and energy is celebratingsummer in the city. So that's the

(02:32):
vibe that the festival will bring thisyear with a wonderful lineup of performers,
food, chios, arts, crafts, kids zone, a very colorful parade,
and a great event that is freeand open to the public. Yeah,
and that's the best part about it. Boston has so many diverse neighborhoods

(02:53):
and groups of people who live there, and I love that your festival celebrates
the diversity of not just the Spanishspeaking community, but really the entire city
at once. Yes, absolutely,the festival brings together people from all over,
not just the city or the SouthEnd, but all over New England.
Last year we had people coming fromFlorida, but that's why we have

(03:14):
people coming from Connecticut from Rhoda Island, particularly those two. And this year
we have this wonderful up and comingstarts, a female sass singer and Shawnee
who is based in Rhode Island.So we expect that we will have a
lot of our neighbors from the OceanState coming up for the festival, not

(03:37):
only to support their own but alsoto have fun and to enjoy the rest
of the lineup that we have.I just hope they all take the tea
so we can park like well,that's part of city life, right,
exactly challenge, but you know it'sa Saturday, so people get lucky around

(04:00):
that. I ever heard on TremonStreet, Washington Street. But yeah,
definitely encourage the use of public transit. Yes, definitely, please come,
but please use public transit. Solet's talk about the planning of the festival
because there's a lot going on here. You said, music and food and
parade and all this stuff. What'sit like putting together this festival every year?
Well, it's it's you know,we celebrate the festival this year in

(04:26):
July twenties, we take right abouta month. We do other events of
course in the meantime, but itcomes September we start thinking of the following
year. So for this particular festival, we started last fall thinking, okay,
what is going to be. Firstwe evaluate the festival that just passed,
right, and see what they willlearn what we did hear from people

(04:48):
while the people like what it seemsso popular and that informs what we want
to do or what we may dothe following year. Since last fall,
we're thinking, okay, what whatworked, what people really loved and enjoyed,
and that informed what we are presentingthis year on July twentieth. But

(05:10):
obviously then that begins, Okay,what's going to be the theme, who
are who will be the line ofwhat kind of representation we want to have,
what kind of vendors. So westart that planning early of the previous
year, and then come January westart meeting like every two weeks or so
to start putting the pieces of thepuzzle together, and for the past six

(05:36):
to eight weeks with be meeting weeklynow to really go by the details to
make sure that the production is there, all the details are there, all
the permitting, all the guests,all the people that we invite and let
the officials, all the additional groupsand arts and community organizations that come.

(05:59):
So we it's almost a year longprocess, juggling a lot going on at
any given time, fun, youknow, and we've done it now for
several years, so we feel,you know, the machine is well.
They're always challenges in every years,challenges depending on the case, but we
having really best also of having agreat group of sponsors, people who really

(06:24):
believe in the festival and see howwonderful and how family oriented it is and
support us. So it's a reallyfun event. So then tell me a
bit about how you reach out toLatino communities around New England, because you
said this is one of the biggestfestivals in the region. How do you
go about getting in touch with peoplein you know, say New Hampshire or
main or Connecticut. Definitely, sothat's use. Obviously social media is a

(06:47):
big part of it, and youknow media in general and conversations like the
one you and I are having andon radio and print set so that's a
big push. But then we dohave a number of partners or across New
England other community organizations that are eitherLatino serving, Latino letted or are organizations.

(07:11):
We have partnerships with organizations in Woosternand Springfield and Holyong, so we
support their work and they support hoursand they come and they help us spread
the word within their communities over there. Send with Lawrence Massachusetts, Hart for
Connecticut. So it's that kind ofcollaborative work that we do, very grassroots

(07:34):
with community organizations like that like EVAsupport you know, the Latino community primarily,
but not exclusively the festival. Asyou will see when people come until
I twenty, it is pretty diversein terms of the people who come to
enjoy it. Of course, themusic is Latino music, the food too.

(07:57):
When people come precisely because of that, because we want to have a
flavor of that. They want tohave that feel, They want to dance
sansa and they want to learn danceor to show off because we have some
very serious dancers that come and it'sa lot of fun. Or like me,

(08:18):
stand on the side and watch peopledance salsa, especially if it's a
hot day. I just want tosit by the silence and enjoy ad I
mean, I just have to letfeet. I'll let the experts take care
of the dancing. But you haveso many incredible performers coming. You were
talking about as Shawanne, so tellus about as Shawnee. Tell us about

(08:41):
the others who are going to becoming to perform. Sure, well,
Shawanee is one of those wonderful upand coming singers that is local. She's
in New England, so we're veryhappy that we're able to present her at
the festival. Like Shannie, We'revery happy and proud to bring Saira Pola
back to the stage of the dances. Saida is a graduate of Berkeley College

(09:03):
with music and she lived here inBoston for a long time, and just
recently a couple of years ago shemoved back to Puerto Rico. But her
career, which we are very happyand place that we kind of supported her
very early on in her career,her career is taking off and she's really
becoming a very popular female figure inthe SASA scene and performing not only in

(09:28):
Puerto Rico but abroad, you know. So that's really exciting to break her
back and to continue to support hercareer with Modos, which is an icon.
But the most important thing is thatthe two closing ads, Pirulo Iladrevo
and Charlie Uponte, who is theheadliner who's closing the festival. Both of

(09:50):
them are these iconic legends of sansaand we know that people will come because
their music is so festa, sofun, so joyful. But with Pidulo,
especially Prulo, his SASA has alot of influence from hip hop,
from reggaeton, from rap, soit's a really nice fusion of different rhythms,

(10:16):
urban and Caribbean rhythms that he infusesinto his sasa. So I know
that's going to also be very attractiveto younger SASA lovers. And then Shaliaponte,
which is totally old school SASA thatwill bring the SASA lovers are young,
old, really old and very young, something for everybody. That's so

(10:39):
cool. And then you've got theparade as well, So what do you
have planned for the parade, like, where is that going to be making
its way down? The parade isthe kickoff of the festival every year.
It's a very colorful way to bringthe neighborhood in and invite the neighborhood into
Nasala, Dansas for the festival.Arts at the Plaza and it goes around

(11:03):
via Victoria and the South Bend andcomes back to the plaza. It includes
a number of the two troops,music performers, community organizations, art groups.
So it's very colorful, it's veryloud, it's very fun, and

(11:24):
it's a wonderful event. People lineup to see it and to enjoy and
dance or a clap or get candyon the sidelines as we sneak through the
neighborhood come back to the plaza.So it's just a really good way of
kind of making noise in the neighborhoodto alert everyone that the festival opened.
And then of course the most importantthing at the festival is the food.

(11:46):
Of course, you have to havegood food. Food is always important because
food is such an important component ofany culture, right and certainly the same
for La. You know. Sothe food is very traditional, typical Caribbean
and Perricane food. So a lotof fried stuff, really tasty, really

(12:07):
really tasty, from bananas to ricebeans, chicken chicken kbobs which we call
pinchoes, so we'll be able toenjoy this wonderful chicken or steak pintroes uh,
pinacolaas a little gilaast uh. Andice cream that is very typical to

(12:31):
the Caribbean. It's not the typicalice cream is similar to one like a
gelato, but a little bit niceier. So it's really good for a hot
afternoon to cool off. So it'sa lot of really nice, rich food
that we have vendors dot com andand sell it the festival. In addition

(12:52):
to all this wonderful joy and celebrationof culture and arts and community, sols
an opportunity to write an economic opportunityfor our vendors, for food vendors,
for artists h to make a living, and we're happy to kiss them that
opportunity as well, sure, andintroducing people who may not be familiar with

(13:15):
your incredible culture. With the foodand the music, anybody can just wander
on in and get caught up ina day of fun and really good food
and roll home. I guess ontothe MBTA being nice and full and happy
and it's going to be a wonderfulday heat or not. I think it's
going to be a good time.Yes, yes, I think so.
It's a family oriented family event.We have a zone for kids in the

(13:39):
afternoon for with arts and crafts andflavorables and different activities for kids. So
it's really a wonderful family event.People come, they some of them bring
their beat shares and you know,they sit down and watch the muse the
performers, the music, the artthis, and the dancers and some others

(14:03):
dance and some others just wander around, meet good new friends, meet all
friends. So yeah, it's reallya wonderful community event. So if people
want to find out more about EBA, about the festival itself, about all
the wonderful work you're doing in theSouth End and around the city of Boston
and New England. Really, becauseyou are one of the best known Latino

(14:24):
organizations in our region. How canthey find you on the web, social
media, so on and so forth. Sure, they can go to EBA
Boston dot org. That's ib ABoston dot org and they're specifically for the
festival. If they go to theevent step the festival is there, they

(14:45):
will have all the information about thelineup, the art, more information about
the performers, the food, etcetera. So that's the way. Or
they can go to our Facebook pageEBA Boston as well as factive advertance as
Facebook page and there's a lot moreinformation about the festival and on the website

(15:07):
of course, more information about thegreat work of EVA, both on the
festival other ic events, as wellas all programming on early education, youth
development, financial environment and presence services. Wonderful and of course the festival.
Saturday, July twentieth, twelve noonto eight o'clock ish Plaza, bit Tian

(15:28):
says over in the South End,correct, correct, I love that,
that's very true. I just hopethat people will come and enjoy a wonderful
afternoon of fun and enjoy and music. Vanessa, thank you again for coming
back to the show and have awonderful time at the Festival. Thank you,
Nicole, thank you for having mehave a Cred Day. And that

(15:50):
is the end of the show.Thanks again so much for joining me this
week, and hey, please havea safe and healthy weekend and join me
again next week for another edition ofthe show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ
News Radio on iHeartRadio.